


Burn Away, Burn Away my Pride

by kye_16



Category: Shadow Unit
Genre: Angst, Chaz Hates Texas (tm), M/M, Shame Daphne Worth is dead, Vanity and Vexation canon, because it's Chaz, coyote in a dog suit, next time I may even try some bloody dialogue, of course there's angst, wtf is a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:15:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kye_16/pseuds/kye_16
Summary: Chaz has had to put up with some shitty assignments in the past. He'd like the shit to stay relegated to the cases, though, if he may.Villette gets nostalgic in shitty ways, and keeps company with (invariably overpriced) whiskey.
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Chaz Villette
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2
Collections: Offerings of a Conspiracy — 2020 (brought to you by Mesopotamian RPF)





	Burn Away, Burn Away my Pride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/gifts).



> Sorry for the absolute lack of plot. I hope you enjoy this brief study in Federal Twink!

Three hours after sundown, and it was still hotter than Satan’s asshole outside. All that concrete and tar held the heat too well, let it ooze out slowly to mix with the stagnant exhaust that drifted over from the freeway. The rumble of engines was omnipresent, mixing with the ambient sounds of people coming and going from what was, by all accounts, a mercifully average three-star hotel. Some raised their eyes to glance over the tired railings and intermittent light streaming from sliding glass doors that littered the face of the building. Not a one caught sight of the painfully slim man folded in on himself on a balcony three stories up.

The first harsh heat of summer used to be unbearable. The man didn’t sweat terribly often; not enough body fat. But the first time it was hot enough for it to bead over his shoulders, trickle down his spine, he would feel the familiar rise of melancholy in the back of his throat. Of loss. Powerlessness. The Bug would feast for a few days, and he’d push it back and push through. And every year was a little less hard.

And then... well, to say it had been a roller coaster for a while would be charitable. But he’d survived, he’d done it, and he’d managed to get himself back where he’d started. He’d cheated the system. He’d won. He’d won, and Hafs was alive, and Nikki and Brady and Falkner and... and fuck it all, he _had_ won, hadn’t he? For all he’d done and all he’d given (and all he’d taken), had he not earned his goddamned victory?

But Daphne’s desk had still been empty.

Not that Chaz had expected to get her back, of course. But the first time he’d stepped back out into that summer heat, felt the threat of the sun, the impotent rage had flared up all over again, pouring out of him and all over the sidewalk.

It got better, of course. Not that the Bug made any part of that easy, but it got better.

Night air crawls over his skin now, hot and sticky. Half-melted ice clinks as Chaz raises his glass to his lips, pulling down a generous amount of whisky before letting it dangle from his fingers again. Sometimes he’s sure the universe hates him; but then, he supposes, he’s earned its scorn. A lick of air trails across his bare forearms, and he almost shivers in the heat. It’s over a hundred bloody degrees, and here he sits shivering twelve hundred miles from home, at what passes for a breeze in Fort Worth, Texas.

He has the sudden overwhelming craving for a cigarette, before a harsh laugh chokes out of him. He’d forgotten, for a moment. This body has never smoked anything stronger than cloves.

The rest of the whisky slides down his throat in a line of wet fire. The burn fades. The pain doesn’t.

Drunken laughter floats up over the sound of doors and idling motors. It’s always got a faintly different quality to it – too sharp, uneven, at once sincere and lacking in control.

A VW Beetle pulls into the lot, rolling to a stop to let its overzealous passengers pour out. It’s one of the newer ones, which is a shame, because he’s always been a fan of the older models. They had personality, a charm that he just didn’t find in the newer ones. He’d been young when he’d gotten his own, in his early twenties – baby blue and convertible, eat your heart out (and anything else, so long as it didn’t have to be in the car). He’d loved that damn Beetle from the moment he’d laid eyes on it.

_“Chick magnet?” he offered, feeling the gritty insecurity in his own voice._

_“Worked for Ted Bundy.” Lopsided grin a little too wide; not entirely certain, herself._

Fuck. _Fuck_. Enough of this. Chaz shoves himself to his feet, empty glass slick against his palm as he goes for the door. He’s going back inside before a bloody semi rolls by.

\---

Most days are fine. Most days Chaz doesn’t think about Daphne Worth, if he’s honest with himself, and even that brings a trickle of shame with it. It’s unwarranted; if he spent every day thinking of everything he’s lost, everything he’s seen, ~~everything he’s done,~~ he’d go mad; and he can’t end up in the asylum now. There’s only one that could ever hope to hold him, and he’s put too many people behind its heavy doors.

It still hurts, all the same. An old injury that never healed properly.

_“Platypus... you know you can talk to me...” He wants to, wishes he could but his flesh is practically screaming on his bones. He can’t, he can’t, not now –_

More whisky goes into the glass. It comes out just as quickly. He doesn’t bother refreshing the ice.

No matter how many good days he puts between here and her death, she’s always found a way to sneak up on him. That crooked grin; the way she always tilted her head to the same side, like her hearing wasn’t quite even; the way her lips got tight like she was trying not to split her face whenever she talked about Tricia. She sits here still, heavy in his chest. Dead weight.

It’s on nights like this that he’s glad he can still pull the door shut between himself and his not-exactly-evil twin. He knows Spencer worries about him, but there’s nothing to be done for it; the pain’s just a contaminant when it’s like this. Best to leave it where it belongs. Chaz tries not to think about the way it seems that much harder, every time he does it.

It’s not a real door, so how can it feel as if it’s heavier every time? As if something pulls against the opposite side, as if it’s askew in its frame and dragging on the ground, making furrows in that ephemeral intermediary space that has become a sort of mutual psyche. Some nights it feels as if it’s physically painful. It doesn’t stop him. He’s never been beneath hurting himself, if he’s got a reason. Of course, he’s never been above it, either.

Chaz is fairly sure he was careful, tonight. He’d wedged that space shut slow, gradual; snuck it in as a familiar current of desperate need began to rise on the other side. Langly has Spencer’s undivided attention. He _should_ be the one to have it, really.

He drags his laptop bag out from under the scattered files that had been dumped rather unceremoniously onto the room’s only table. They’re not much – some crime scene photos accompanied a few eyewitness reports, and an info brief that had been redacted practically into uselessness. He’s been over them already. They won’t tell him anything new until someone gives him more to work with than idle speculation (and their thorough commitment to protect whomever was living behind those censor blocks). The laptop, at least, should give him something to do until (unless?) his brain decides to let him sleep.

It’s not the diversion he wants. It could be blond hair, shot with grey, held between the fingers. It could be a sharp hazel-brown eye over a coffee cup, across a room. It could be pointed hips, held still, held down, trying to rock, to chase to feel to _take_.

Checking his email doesn’t really help the same way. Social media’s a curse. The porn is a joke, and a bad one at that. It probably always has been; he just used to be less choosy. He might be able to find something for his hand to dance to. It’s beyond doubtful that he’ll find anything to quiet Daphs. But then, with the Anomaly marinading the way it is tonight, there’s little that will.

Of course... there’s always one thing that does the trick.

The night ticks along with the unrelenting precision of linear time. He’s proven right, and the laptop shuts. The lights click off. He settles in.

The lights click on. He uses the washroom. He wanders out to the balcony again, into the stifling air. He comes in and flips open a file, but there’s nothing there that wasn’t there half a day ago when last he read it.

Chaz needs sleep. This case is going to be far too delicate, far too political for him to show up red-eyed and faking it on their first day.

He hates Texas.

He’s felt Reid brush up against the door a couple times tonight, light touches and inquiry, but it’s been a while. That said, if Langly was up to spec tonight... Spencer should be well asleep by now. It would be so easy to open it, just a crack. Just enough to find some comfort. Just enough to help him crash. Guilt wells a little at the thought, and Chaz feels an all-too familiar impulse to lean into it. As if the Bug hasn’t fed enough, tonight. Insatiable fuck.

Spencer wouldn’t begrudge him such a use, he knows. He’d open the door himself, drag him in to rest against all those contours and corners he fits best. He’d give to Chaz without hesitation, without so much as blinking at the shit Chaz always seems to track in on the soles of his shoes. Knowing it doesn’t lessen the guilt in his chest. Hell, kinda makes it worse.

He crawls back into bed. The lights flick off. The ache in his chest is almost painful. His mind is racing. He knows, though, that this will do it. It always does. And so, he makes the call.

The mirror can be a lot of things, _do_ a lot of things. Chaz can reflect himself, reflect others. He can angle it to distort, use it to refract light into dark places, or use it to hide himself entirely. As he visualizes the door between himself and Reid, nudging it open just a sliver, he slides the mirror through in thin, jagged shards. Like a thief’s pocket tool, it can help him see around corners, too.

Reid is... hazy. He’s fading in and out of that soft, liminal space between sleep and being thoroughly, blissfully fucked-out. Soft skin, bony angles jut against him; he’s curled around them this side of too tight, a stick-finger grip hanging on to consciousness. Not just for the ache in his hips. Not just for the smell of sex, and Jolt, and the metallic tang that’s started to hang in the air when Langly exerts himself.

Like a lizard risking the scorching desert sun, he’s basking in the indescribable feeling of being in love.

Chaz doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing. This is not for him. This is _theirs_ , this is _private_ , and here he is a thief stealing in for his own gain. Even glinting off the mirror, it’s the most radiant thing in him now, luminous and blazing into every dark corner of his shrivelled heart. How Spencer can consider himself the evil twin, the monstrous one, when something like this can live in him... it’s a sin. A sound chokes off in Chaz’s hotel room, and only faintly does he recognize his own voice.

He _swears_ he’s not crying.

Not for the first time, he wonders just how much he’s willing to do when he’s weak like this, with the Anomaly gnawing away inside of him. To stay, though... it would be so benign, in the list of its crimes. In the list of his own.

Chaz nudges the door open a little more, letting a sliver of light through. It’s slim but incisive, tearing at the fresh adhesions he’d been growing around Daphne Worth’s memory. He barely notices. The heat _burns_ , and it’s so good he can’t really bring himself to care anymore, not about any of it – not about the guilt, or the pain, or the way part of him is slinking around the steadily-widening gap between himself and his better half. Is he a coyote, or a moth? _But then, even a coyote will sneak into a warm barn in the winter_ , a distant corner of himself muses.

And so, small as he can make himself, he finds those secluded recesses of Spencer’s mind where he knows he’ll fit. He slips between the layers of his attention, leaving his guilt behind for the Bug, where it will be welcome. And if there is the faintest brush of affection against his fur as he drifts off, well... there is no one forcing him to acknowledge it.


End file.
